Sustainability
Our Commitment
Because a festival like Main Square brings together tens of thousands of people and is located in a Citadel listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reducing its impact on the environment and on society is a major challenge. For this reason, Main Square Festival adheres since 2019 to the Partnership Charter of Commitment of the Urban Community of Arras for the benefit of the Ecological Transition. This represents the innovative implementation at the territorial level of France’s national and international ecological ambition, materialized by the Paris agreements following COP 21.
Thus, we work each year to carry out new actions with our partners in the territory aimed at making the impact of the festival on nature and its occupants more positive, we are renewing and deepening the efforts made during previous editions and we are trying to raise awareness among our festivalgoers so that they too leave as few traces as possible of their visit to the Citadel and its surroundings.
Our actions
ENERGY & GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
We have …
- Partnered with Reforest’Action in 2019: festival-goers had the opportunity to make donations to plant trees via the festival’s cashless system: thank s to their many donations, they helped plant 3,329 trees in Haiti.
- Provided festivalgoers with free shuttles in Arras to promote the use of public transport.
We will …
- Extend in 2022 the means of collecting donations to support environmental defense projects.
- Put in place methods to control the use of generators aimed at reducing our fuel consumption as much as possible.
- Set up a carpooling platform dedicated to the festival.
Waste
We have …
- Since 2011 set up a system of reusable and returnable cups Ecocup. We reuse the cups in the colors of previous editions every year, we do not throw away stock from one year to the next.
- Installed ashtrays everywhere on the festival site. The cigarette butts collected were recycled.
- Distributed 6,000 pocket ashtrays to festivalgoers.
- Opened a free water bar accessible to all.
- Forbidden the use of plastic straws.
- Eliminated paper programs.
- Used 100% recycled water bottles.
- Improved the sorting of festival waste: 51% of festival waste was recycled and we are working to improve this result for the years to come.
We will …
- Strengthen waste collection teams and sorting awareness.
- Optimize the sorting of plastic bottles.
- Increase the number of ashtrays on site
- Organize a “World Clean Up Day” operation to collect cigarette butts on the ground after the festival.
Food
- We have selected restaurants offering various vegetarian, vegan, and organic meal options – we will increase the share of these in the years to come.
- We have replaced plastic or cardboard tableware with compostable and reusable tableware in food trucks and at the catering.
Public engagement
We try to make our festival-goers aware of eco-gestures and waste sorting through signage on site and digital communication. In addition, from 2022 we are setting up a NGO space on site dedicated to raising awareness for a fairer and more sustainable world. The following NGOs will be part of Main Square 2022:
The Syndicat Mixte Artois Valorisation who works on the territory of Arras and handles the management of the waste of the festival will also be present and will set up awareness workshops on the reduction and sorting of waste with festivalgoers.
Social
Because Main Square wants to continue to welcome festivalgoers with complete peace of mind in the safe and inclusive environment,
We have …
- Set up a prevention space where many social issues are discussed to raise awareness among our public.
- Deployed a large number of security and video surveillance officers to identify possible attacks and react quickly, but also to listen to festivalgoers.
We will …
- Set up patrols throughout the duration of the festival with teams trained to provide assistance to possible victims of sexual or discriminatory assault.
- Continue to train our teams, in particular security, on these subjects.
- Continue to pay particular attention to representation within our line-ups.
They support us
